2023 Summer Reading Guide: For the Middle (& Early High) Schoolers (Ages 10-16)
June 8, 2023 § 1 Comment
The final installment of this year’s Summer Reading Guide is here, and it’s mostly targeted at middle schoolers, although the last few suggestions will be great for early high schoolers, too. (Before you ask, YES, graphic novels are included here as well!) For those with 10-12 year olds, I highly recommend you also peruse my list for Elementary Readers, with titles for 8-12 years.
All the books below are newly published! But, a reminder that if you missed my Spring Break Reading Round-Up earlier this year—traditional books here and graphic novels here—there are some fabulous middle-school titles on there. For instance, I’ve now had three middle schoolers tell me that What Happened to Rachel Riley? is the best book they’ve EVER read. Dan Santat’s graphic memoir, A First Time for Everything, is a must for summer reading, especially for those getting ready to head off to high school. The graphic novel adaptation of Bomb is perfect for your history buffs. And Simon Sort of Says, if your kiddo can handle some heavier themes (overlaid with lots of humor and beautiful friendships and parental relationships), is likely to garner gazillions of accolades come awards season.
Then there are all the books still on my to-read pile, so you’ll have to stay tuned to Instagram for updates on those. (Including what my high schooler will be reading in the UK for the next few weeks!)
Here we go! Books below are presented from YOUNGEST to OLDEST. Links, as always, support Old Town Books. (View and shop all our Summer Reading Guides—for adults, too!—right here!)
Aniana Del Mar Jumps In
by Jasmine Mendez
Ages 9-13
Jasmine Mendez’s Aniana Del Mar Jumps In is one to savor, both for its exquisite writing as for its delicate handling of complex themes, including bodily autonomy, parental pressure, the toll of secrets, chronic illness, following your heart, and a mother-daughter relationship at once fiercely loving and deeply painful. Told in a combination of free verse and structured poetic forms like concrete/shape poems and haikus, the story would lend itself beautifully to book clubs, aspiring poets, and, of course, those who love competitive swimming as much as our protagonist. (Also perfect for fans of Lisa Fipps’ Starfish!)
Aniana del Mar—all the names in the book pay homage to noteworthy Dominican and Dominican American women—feels just as at home in the water as the dolphins who populate the Texas coast where she lives. A crowning star on her swim team, Ani keeps a box filled with her medals. But she also pays a dangerous price for her passion: Papi insists her swimming be kept a secret from Mami, who has never recovered from watching her twin brother drown in a hurricane. For Ani, hiding such a big part of herself from her mother creates undue emotional stress, but when her body develops juvenile idiopathic arthritis—pain like jellyfish tentacles RiPPiNg my nerve endings to pieces—she worries she has betrayed her body as well.
Over time, Ani understands that her auto-immune disease is neither the result of swimming nor of lying to her mother. Still, as she works to manage chronic pain and own this new version of herself, Ani must confront her mother’s feelings of betrayal, coupled with a renewed commitment to keep Ani from water activities, even after the doctor says it could actually help. [T]here’s a bonfire burning/ me up inside and Mami’s taken away/ the only water that will help put it out […] It is not easy to understand/ how the mother who once/ held you with love/ is now the storm/ striking you/ down. Ani is a courageous, resilient heroine, and we cheer as she finds joy in friendship, power in her body, compassion for herself, and advocacy for her autonomy—all while leaning into the mutual work of repair and forgiveness within her family system.
Once There Was
by Kiyash Monsef
Ages 10-14
“The world is full of darkness, and the darkness is terrifying. But if you give the darkness a face, then maybe you can speak to it. And if you can speak to it, then maybe you can control it. And after all, isn’t that why we invented monsters?”
“Did we invent them?” I asked.
This stunning debut is my new rec for fantasy readers looking to level up without sacrificing age-appropriate content. Kiyash Monsef’s Once There Was is a contemporary fantasy as contemplative as it is thrilling, the story of an Iranian American girl who learns her father was secretly a veterinarian to magical creatures and, after his mysterious death, takes up his work in hopes of finding answers.
Marjan, now a high school sophomore, grew up listening to her father regale her with legends of mythical beasts, though she never imagined there was truth to these stories, especially the one about the ancient girl who saved a unicorn and bore a scar not unlike Marjan’s own. Even as she grew up around the reception halls and operating tables of her father’s shoe-string veterinary practice, Marjan never witnessed anything unusual, though she did resent her father’s long, unexplained absences, particularly after the loss of her mother. Now, with her father gone for good, Marjan struggles to balance schoolwork, friendships, and the clinic. But just when she’s considering throwing in the towel on the clinic, she receives an invitation and plane ticket from a strange visitor: there’s a sick griffon outside London, and the woman wants Marjan to diagnose him.
So begins Marjan’s complex, high-stakes orientation, not only into the mechanics of her father’s work, but into a secret world hidden in plain sight—one in terrible jeopardy. Along the way, she meets friends and foes, humans and non-humans, but her greatest threat remains that of a loss never grieved. Ever since her mother died, Marjan has known more anger than sadness, alongside a feeling that she is lacking in some deeply essential way. Can the convergence of story and life restore Marjan to herself, even as she fights to protect the wonder and terror in the world?
Signed copies here!
Lo & Behold: A Graphic Novel
by Wendy Mass; illus. Gabi Mendez
Ages 10-14
Introducing my daughter’s favorite graphic novel of 2023 (and that’s saying a lot, since she helped me pick every one of the awesome graphic novels on this list)! Wendy Mass’s debut graphic novel, Lo & Behold, illustrated by Gabi Mendez, is for the kid starting to age out of Raina Telgemeier, hungering for more complexity and nuance around the subjects of family and friendship. It delves into weighty questions about empathy and forgiveness, touches gently on addiction and abandonment, is served up over the course of a summer that surprises in all the best ways, and is STEM-tastic, giving a starring role to the uses and possibilities of virtual reality (even had me convinced of its merits by the end). Yup, this one’s a keeper.
A child of scientist parents, Addie is named for the world’s longest living tortoise—a fortuitous choice, as it turns out, since tortoises were the first astronauts to orbit the moon, something Addie herself hopes to do someday. Even the book’s title is a nod to the wonder that Addie’s mom used to charge her with spotting in her everyday life. But all that changed when a severe car accident left a giant hole where her mother had been. Now, one year later, little in Addie’s life feels wonder-filled, and the last thing she feels like is having her life uprooted again by following her father, a futurist, across the country for a summer of him overseeing VR development on a university campus.
As Addie tries to combat boredom during the long hours her dad is working, she’s surprised to find she doesn’t hate the company of another professor’s kid named Mateo. Nor does she hate competing with him in geocaching. Or hunting for a moon seed that may have been planted on campus. But when the two volunteer themselves as test subjects for various VR pilots, things really get interesting (and not just in a flinging zombies kind of way). They may even have an idea for a program of their own! That is…if the secrets they’re both hiding about their pasts don’t threaten to implode this delicate, newfound friendship.
Torpedoed: The True Story of the World War II Sinking of “The Children’s Ship”
by Deborah Heiligman
Ages 10-14
Back in 2019, Deborah Heiligman’s Torpedoed: The True Story of the World War II Sinking of “The Children’s Ship” made an appearance on my Gift Guide. Finally released this summer in paperback, it is worthy of repeating! WW2 buffs will devour this richly researched account of what happened in September, 1940, when the passenger liner SS City of Benares—nicknamed “The Children’s Ship”—was torpedoed in the North Atlantic by a German submarine. On board the ship were nearly one hundred children, mostly British evacuees whose parents were sending them to Canada in an attempt to keep them away from Hitler’s bombs.
In Torpedoed, factual details and historical context abound, broken up by frequent black-and-white photographs and sketches; and yet, the text is both cinematic and suspenseful. The loss of lives was significant—the majority of the children aboard did not survive—but what sets Heiligman’s account apart are the numerous acts of heroism, bravery, and altruism by ordinary people. In fact, many of those who performed extraordinary measures in the aftermath of the attack were part of the teenaged crew.
If there was a book that could make a non-fiction reader out of your skeptic, this is it.
Tegan & Sara Junior High: A Graphic Novel
by Tegan Quin & Sara Quin; illus. Tillie Walden
Ages 10-14
These next two graphic novels are, as my Dad would have teased, perfect “teenybopper” material. I don’t mean to imply the stories are shallow—they delve into adolescent drama in thoughtful, nuanced ways—just that they do so with immense “teenybopper” appeal. Junior High is the first title in a contemporary series about identical twins surviving junior high, inspired by the real lives of the Canadian indie-pop duo, Tegan and Sara, who your kids may recognize from the “Everything is AWESOME!” song in the The Lego Movie. Adopting a confessional tone, the entire book appears hand-drawn in a predominantly purple palette, giving it a journal vibe that only enhances the “teenybopper” vibes. (I promise to stop saying that now.)
As Tegan and Sara embark on seventh grade in a new school in Calgary, they vow to keep their twin bond as strong as ever. What they don’t anticipate is how formidable the challenges of junior high are, from friend cliques to first crushes, homework loads to the perils of puberty. In their old school, the twins had the same best friend. Now, Sara spends countless hours texting a girl on whom she is crushing, uncertain if her queerness is something she can even talk to her family about. Tegan, on the other hand, spends her time with a non-binary classmate named Noa, even when it means putting up with the bullying of Noa’s other BFF. Secrets, misunderstandings, and resentments begin to wreak havoc on the twins’ relationship, and both girls mourn their former intimacy.
Enter music, in the form of a guitar the girls discover among their stepfather’s stuff in the garage. What begins as a few You Tube tutorials quickly unleashes a shared passion for playing and writing music as part of a band called Gunk (“Nirvana meets Eilish”). When they aren’t fighting over the guitar or ratting out the other’s failing math grade to their parents, they discover that music is not only a way to put words to the complicated feelings of growing up, but a vehicle through which they can find their way back to one another.
(Content: very light, quick kissing.)
The Love Report: A Graphic Novel
by BeKa & Maya
Ages 10-14
The Love Report, the first in a fun and thoughtful new series by a French team, tackles romance head on, as two protagonists take an investigative journalist approach to the subject, interrogating (and spying on) their Junior High classmates—those in relationships and those who make it their business to know who’s in a relationship—as they attempt to understand the ins and outs of romantic love. I would have been all over the content in this book as a young teen, and today’s kids will be equally enraptured with the GORGEOUS art. (The illustrator is an Italian-born manga artist, so need I say more?)
BFFs Lola and Grace have romantic love on the brain: Lola is working up the nerve to tell her crush how she feels, while Grace is watching her parents’ marriage fall apart. The two decide to collaborate on a “love report,” answering questions like, How does physical attraction begin? What makes a relationship last? What constitutes real love, and why do people behave the way they do (read: “stupid”) when they first fall in love? Why do some kids seem to get all the action and others none at all? And how do we recover from heartbreak?
The emphasis on hetero relationships will be a deterrent to some (a great reason to pair this with Junior High above), but the story hosts an array of other valuable representation as it explores the role of popularity, reputation, consent, sexism, platonic friendship, and more in the rise and fall of romantic relationships. (As a parent of teens, I will add that I took notes on the way Lola’s mother responds to her heartbreak.)
(Content: light kissing.)
Global: One Fragile World. An Epic Fight for Survival (Graphic Novel)
by Eoin Colfer & Andrew Donkin
Ages 10-14
If you’ve been hanging around for awhile, you might remember back in 2018 when my daughter was obsessed with Eoin Colfer and Andrew Durkin’s graphic novel, Illegal, about a twelve-year-old refugee from Ghana who attempts a hazardous crossing to Europe with his older brother. Five years later, the authors have teamed up on another graphic novel, delivering not one but two nail-biting survival stories. Global is about two courageous children facing unfathomable crises in their hometowns due to climate change. As I write this in Virginia, I’m looking out the window into the stinky haze of the Canadian wildfires, so this graphic novel feels especially timely.
The graphic novel moves back and forth between two protagonists, each in a different corner of the Earth. Sami lives with his grandfather in a tiny, overcrowded village along the muddy banks of the Indian Ocean. They earn their living by fishing, but the rising ocean levels and worsening storms mean that each day they bring back fewer fish, while spending more time rebuilding the tiny structure in which they sleep. Yuki, on the other hand, lives in the far north of Canada, where warming temperature are melting the ice. With less food to hunt, polar bears—including a largely unstudied species born of the recently intersecting habitats of grizzlies and polar bears—are wandering into town looking for something to eat, putting themselves at the mercy of rangers’ guns. Yuki feels fiercely protective of these bears.
Both children inadvertently put themselves in harm’s way as they attempt to change the course of the lives around them: Sami wishes to improve his grandfather’s luck, while Yuki aims to save a new “grolar” bear on the outskirts of town. Their choices lead to intense, cascading peril—all the more dramatic for Giovanni Rigano’s cinematic artwork—and yet, the children are never without determination and hope. In addition to providing a fascinating window into different realities around the world, the book does a formidable job of inspiring urgency around climate change.
I Kick and I Fly
by Ruchira Gupta
Ages 12-16
I’ve been shouting about this book from the rooftops ever since I finished it: a breathlessly-paced YA story that explodes with female empowerment and social justice in the face of a devastating reality. Inspired by real people and events, I Kick and I Fly, by Emmy award-winning documentarian Ruchira Gupta, centers a contemporary girl in Northern India, who turns to the competitive practice of kung fu to avoid being sold into the sex trade. This is appropriate for young teens, you ask? YES! The subject matter is handled with utmost sensitivity, and the story’s emphasis is on the resilience of the human spirit, the strength of the human body, and the salvation of women friendships.
On the outskirts of the red-light district in Bihar, India, where the caste system is very much still in play, Heera knows it’s only a matter of time until her father will resort to selling her into prostitution in order to repay the family’s loans, the same “fate” that has befallen her older cousin and countless other young women in her village. So, when a local hostel owner advocates for Heera to stay in school, then presents her with an opportunity to learn kung fu, she knows this is the best chance she’ll get to claim a life for herself, while still earning enough money to appease her father and support her family.
In the art of kung fu, Heera turns out to be fiercely disciplined and naturally gifted, but the physical strength and mental aptitude she develops are put to the test well beyond the competitive arenas. Not only must Heera frequently evade the predatory schemes of a local trafficker, but she spearheads a high-risk mission to rescue her best friend, who disappeared a year earlier under suspicious circumstances and may now be in New York City against her will. A beautifully penned character with grit and grace beyond measure, Heera is a testament to the power of young people to fight for a better world.
(Content: while prostitution and human trafficking is obviously a theme here, it always occurs off page and there are no graphic depictions.)
Sunshine
by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
Ages 12-16
Ready for the most heartwarming story of the year? Jarrett J. Krosoczka follows his up award-winning graphic memoir, Hey, Kiddo, with Sunshine, about his formative experience in 1994 as a 16-year-old counselor at a summer camp for children with life-threatening illnesses and their families. Right off the bat, Jarrett addresses the reaction people have when they hear about his work at the camp: “it must have been so sad.” Sad couldn’t be further from the truth, Jarrett explains; in fact, it was one of the most joyful, life-affirming experiences of his life. My daughter’s response upon finishing this graphic novel? “Mommy, drop everything and read this. Also, I want to do this someday.”
Alongside insights into his own trepidation at being around “sick” kids—Will anything I say or do be able to help these kids?—Jarrett gives us a window into his fellow counselors, many of whom are his school classmates, and the young campers and their families, some of whom will play an enduring role in his adult life. With the goal of Camp Sunshine to deliver nothing but fun to kids whose days are too often ruled by treatment schedules, readers will find plenty of standard summer camp fare here, from fishing adventures to spooky campfire stories to talent shows. But the most gratifying payoff lies in the one-on-one relationships Jarrett builds with a few of the campers.
Of these relationships, one of the most beautiful is with a wheelchair-bound teenage boy named Diego, who initially wants nothing to do with Jarrett or the camp, despite the fervent enthusiasm of his parents. Only Jarrett’s knack for sketching superheroes begins to warm Diego—well, that and Jarrett falling into the lake while climbing out of a pedal boat—in a testament to the power of art to transcend differences. Speaking of art, Jarrett’s choice to employ a limited palette of yellow and grey for this memoir works wonders on our own connection to it. But I won’t lie: you still need to cue up the tissues.
(Content: a little bad language.)
This is the Way the World Ends
by Jen Wilde
Ages 12-16
I’m declaring this dystopian, dark academia Cinderella story the teen thriller of the summer! In addition to compulsively readable, with genuinely hair-raising twists and turns, Jen Wilde’s This is the Way the World Ends stars an irresistibly spunky and smart heroine, who also happens to be autistic (like the author herself).
As a scholarship student at New York City’s prestigious Webber Academy, Waverly is used to masking to fit in, trying to pretend she doesn’t sleep on the pull-out couch of her family’s one-bedroom apartment and worry about how her parents will pay for her mom’s next hospital bill. Even if she wanted to go, she can’t afford a designer dress for the school’s fundraiser masquerade ball, which doubles as “who’s who” of NYC’s elite. But when Waverly discovers that her ex-girlfriend, the dean’s daughter, is back in town after a mysterious exit out of the country, she accepts the proposition of her tutoring student—the richest, most popular girl at school—to don her extravagant gown and mask and go to the party disguised as Caroline.
Under this secret identity, Waverly finds herself privy to backroom conversations that reveal that the dean’s motive for the evening is far more sinister than soliciting checks from wealthy families. Before long, someone winds up murdered, and a mysterious global-wide power outage puts them all on lockdown. Set over the course of one long, harrowing evening, the story follows Waverly and her classmates through a dizzying maze of freight elevators, secret passageways, and mirrored rooms as they attempt to save themselves from a fate worse than death, while simultaneously exploring haunting questions of privilege and power.
(Content: nothing beyond (steamy) kissing.)
The Queens of New York
by E.L. Shen
Ages 12-16
Three best friends. Three narrative perspectives. One life-changing summer. I inhaled The Queens of New York, fast-paced reading for teen girls considering the changes that high school brings, including burgeoning autonomy, shifting interests, budding romances, and the all-important role of adolescent friendships. These protagonists offer a portrait of friendship that is everything we want for our teens—one built on respect, support, humor, trust, and delight in one another’s company.
Growing up in Flushing, Queens, Jia Lee, Ariel Kim, and Everett Hoang have always been inseparable, despite their different schools, families, and economic situations. Summers have never been an exception—until now, when the three girls must go their separate ways. Everett, aspiring Broadway star, heads to Ohio for a prestigious summer program with a famed director. Ariel, STEM prodigy, is off to San Francisco where her college scholarship is starting early. And Jia, Manga artist extraordinaire, will hunker down in Queens as the designated caretaker of her little sister and elderly grandmother, in addition to helping her parents navigate broken dim sum steamers and angry customers at the Chinese restaurant they own.
It turns out not being together is the least of the challenges the girls will face. Everett is cast as a racist stereotype in the program’s rendition of Thoroughly Modern Millie, and speaking out about it jeopardizes her position. Ariel finds that, away from her overbearing parents, she can no longer ignore the crushing grief over her older sister’s death one year earlier; she makes the spontaneous decision to ditch California for South Korea in hopes of finding answers about her sister’s life before the accident. Finally, Jia, crushing on a rich white boy, must confront the shame she sometimes feels about her family’s poverty, as well as the pressure she feels to take over the family business at the expense of pursuing her own dreams. Through calls, texts, and emails, the three teens share and process these moments of uncertainty and self-discovery, proving that touchstone friendships are capable of transcending physical distance.
(Content: light kissing, underage drinking (with consequences that will please parents hoping to dissuade this))
Going Bicoastal
by Dahlia Adler
Ages 13-17
I’m ending with my favorite teen romance of the summer! Going Bicoastal is a sliding-doors rom com that screams summer. When the story opens, Natalya Fox has but 24 hours to make the hardest decision of her life: should she spend her summer at home in NYC with her dad and maybe finally get up the nerve to talk to the coffee-shop girl she has been crushing on? Or should she take advantage of a long-overdue opportunity to get to know her estranged mom in LA, while interning at her fancy marketing firm?
Lucky for us, she never has to choose: both scenarios play out across alternating chapters. In NYC, during free moments between working as a day camp counselor, Natalya strikes up a steamy relationship with Elly, the girl of her dreams, who indoctrinates her into the alternative music scene. Out in LA, Natalya sits next to a fellow intern named Adam, who’s predisposed to not like her because she’s the boss’s daughter. As she gradually wins him over with her artistic skills, Adam reveals that he knows his way around LA and a kitchen (his brother owns the most popular taco truck in town). Their sexual chemistry builds.
Both ways it plays out, Natalya’s summer is as formative as the best high school summers are, not only for its romantic developments, but for the way new experiences and people help re-frame passions, aspirations for the future, and an appreciation for the family we have—not the one we sometimes wish we had. Bonus points for the many mouthwatering food scenes.
(Content: nothing beyond (very steamy) kissing. Some underage drinking.)
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What to Read to Your Kids 
[…] include some of the graphic novels I covered in this year’s Summer Reading Guide (part one and part two) or Spring Break Round Up, exceptional titles that are beloved in our house, like Parachute Kids […]